I Hate Lead

It's was difficult to enjoy Mother's Day this year.  We had Weston's one-year physical last Monday and they did a finger prick to test for anemia and lead.  We got a call Tuesday from the pediatrician telling us that we had to go to Children's to get a venous draw because the first test came back positive for lead.  Not good.  So we went to Children's on Wednesday and Thursday (the first draw didn't yield enough blood so we had to go a second time).  Saturday our pediatrician called and said his blood lead level (BLL) was 16.4 μg/dL (micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood).


To make a long, worrisome story short, Weston's BLL is elevated.  Anything over 10 μg/dL is cause for concern, but after my hours and hours of researching lead poisoning on the Internet, there is no such thing as a safe BLL.  We have an appointment at the lead clinic on Wednesday, and from there they'll walk us through what our next steps are.


How did he get this??  No, he didn't get it from eating paint chips like is commonly thought...

Did You Eat a Lot of Paint Chips as a Kid?

I'm actually amazed at how babies and toddlers can pick up lead.  Because they're crawling around everywhere, exploring, and putting everything into their mouths, they can gradually accumulate lead in their system.  It's most easily obtained through ingestion.  Lead dust is something that occurs from lead paint that's been disturbed and not been properly removed.  We just moved into a completely renovated house that was built in 1892....lead paint was banned in the late 1970s...so it's most likely from the renovation dust that settled all over the house.  Of course, we cleaned before we moved in, but with a non-HEPA vacuum, which can just suck up the lead dust and blow it right out the back again.  I did wipe everything down with a wet rag, but obviously not well enough.

It's not easy to do either, especially keep calm

I really had no idea of the dangers of lead dust, or even what is was for that matter.  I'm more than angry about this whole situation, but we're getting it resolved.  The clinic works with the local health department and they will come out and do an assessment of the house to figure out where the lead is coming from.  In the mean time, we're washing his hands constantly and trying to mop the floors without vacuuming.  Our new Dyson HEPA filter vacuum should arrive on Wednesday...